Blurry Reality
by Deed
Summary: My first LotR fic, so be kind. A girl falls through a whole in the ground and runs (not literaly) into Gandalf. Unsure on how to got back to where she was before she fallows him (Two Towers)


Blurry Reality  
  
A/N: Ok this my first LotR's fanfic, it's a strange mix between the books and the movies, so basically whatever turns out to be convenient . And yes this it one of those 'girl falls into ME' one's, but with a twist It's, cuz where she comes from there were to books, or movies, which means no 'but your fictional' line that really gets on my nerves for some odd reason or another. PG-13 for swearing and such, yes she's got a dirty mouth. Reviews are always welcomed as is criticism, flames however will only excite this obsessed pyro.  
  
Disc: I only own Lor, Jordan, Martin, other random people, and parts of the plot, the rest is not mine.  
  
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1. On With the Show  
  
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The place was dark and smoky, and loud, but at least the first two helped to prevent some distraction. His heart was pounding, if he could pull this off - which he new he could - he wouldn't have to worry about rent that month. His confidence went up even farther when he heard the ring of the bell and his opponent still hadn't turned around, and was in fact still talking to someone on the other side of the chain link fence which enclosed the area. 'This is gonna be way to easy' he thought as he lunged forward, left fist balled up and heading for the back of his unsuspecting opponents head.  
  
His shock was complete when his opponent tilted their head at the last second causing him to punch the chain link fence instead getting his hand somewhat stuck. His humiliation didn't end there however, even as he could hear the slight burst of laughter from the crowd begin to die out the other grabbed his left wrist with their right hand pulling it free of the fence and elbowing him in the gut. A mix of cheers, shouts and laughs erupted from the crowd as well as a few disappointed mutters as the other released their grip on his wrist causing him to fall unceremoniously to the ground.  
  
"Well it looks like we have a winner," came the rather annoying voice of the announcer. "No real shock there though I guess."  
  
'How could I have lost?' He questioned himself as he looked up at his opponent from the floor, they were talking to somebody on the other side of the fence again, like nothing had happened. 'How could I have lost to a girl?'  
  
"And so now's the time to ask the big question, after we get someone to drag this guy out of here, who'll be next?" It became very quiet in the normally loud establishment as two men entered the ring to drag the man on the floor away. "Come on, surely one of you wants a chance at - what are we up to now - 1025 dollars" Still no one stepped forward. "Well then is that's the case the money goes to the little lady."  
  
She frowned a bit at the name as she exited the ring to collect her money. She had been hoping for it to go a bit longer so that she could get a bigger payoff but had no such luck.  
  
After collecting her money and a few other things she exited the establishment and took a deep breath of - what one living in a large city might consider - fresh air. She walked slowly down the side walk towards her apartment stopping briefly to look at her reflection in a pool of water and gasoline that had gathered on the side of the road. She frowned a bit as she saw the state of her hair, it came down just below her chin and was white with the odd bit of red caused by tons of little strawberry marks on her scalp, she thought the whole thing looked like an old mop. Her eyes were a dull gray blue, almost the color of stone, and to add to the ghost look made by her hair she couldn't remember the last time her skin had felt the sun for any length of time.   
  
She let out a small sigh as she crossed the street stepping in the puddle as she did so ignoring the few people who had looked at her funny as she had looked at her reflection. Most people just didn't care they were to busy with their own affairs to wonder about others walking around unless they were someone important to them. There were always people on the street, always, didn't matter the time of the day or the weather they were always there like some permanent part of the land.  
  
Her apartment was just three blocks away now, and all she wanted was to get home and maybe have a drink. Things had not been going well for her, she had been getting no jobs and no jobs meant no money, and no money meant no food and no shelter. Slow periods were common though in her line of work as a professional hunter, but they only last about a month two at the most and then it was back to business as usual, but it had been four months now and there had been nothing. Shaking her head she turned the key and opened the door to her apartment on the 17th floor, something would come up it just had to.  
  
Depression had always been a bit of a problem for her, and so the disturbing thought of how quiet it had been for the past four months was not easily dismissed from her mind. She went to fridge and pulled out a bottle of vodka and proceeded to the balcony, grabbing her laptop on the way out.   
  
Seating herself out on the ledge with one leg dangling and the other bent up towards her chest leaning back against the wall, her left hand resting against her bent leg held the bottle, which she took a swig from as she looked up at the moon. It was just so peaceful up there away from the hub-bub that existed on the ground and in the undercity where she had spent most of her life. Her peace was shattered by an annoying beep from her laptop. She haled it up and flipped on the screen.   
  
It was Jordan, and a call from him was quite welcomed since it almost always was business with him. The older man smiled then frowned when he saw the bottle of vodka in her hand. "Fuck, sometimes I really wonder 'bout you."   
  
She gave him a half hearted attempt at a smile. "Only sometimes? You know I could say the same thing for you, haven't called in so long."  
  
"I swear Lor, you are one o' th' most frustrating people I 'ave ever met." He said shaking his head. "Now I need you ta listen, dis' is important, I'm callin' you on business, not jus' ta make small talk."  
  
"Of course, you just calling to talk, what a crazy notion." She pushed some of her white hair behind her ear and took another drink from the bottle, a bit of a smile creeping onto her face. 'Finally a job' was that she could think of, and all her previous worry was already starting to dissipate.  
  
He let out a heavy sigh. "There's been a murder, down by one o' th' old tunnel entrances, it's right by a club and th' owner's fucking pissed coz all o' 'is business is been scared off by it. 'E's willin' ta pay quite a bit." He smiled a bit as he saw that he had caught her attention although after four months without work he wasn't to worried about her turning it down.  
  
Lor took another swig from the bottle before replying. "What is it and which tunnel entrance?"  
  
"So, does dis' mean you'll take th' job?" He asked while looking away from the screen like it was nothing important.  
  
"Oh for shit sakes, of coarse it does, now give me the what and the where." She was starting to get a bit annoyed.  
  
Jordan's head snapped back to the screen. "Good, well I 'ave a bit o' bad news, at least as far as th' wot is concerned, 'e says 'e didn't get a good look at it, but wot it left behind was a real mess, but 'e say's 'e kno' where it went. An' well th' where, th' name o' the club is 'Th' Breeze' an' it's by D-16 you're rather familiar wit' dat area arn't you?" He said the last part with a crooked smile.   
  
'Of coarse I know that area' she thought, the part of the undercity that D-16 led to was where she had spent most of her young life. "Yeah, I know the place. Thanks Jordan, I really needed this." She was just about to close her laptop when he spoke again.  
  
"Lor..."  
  
"Yes?"   
  
"Are ya sure you want ta do dis'?" He sounded a bit sad.  
  
"Why wouldn't I? I need money and well it doesn't grow on trees." She was becoming more than a little confused by his strange behavior.  
  
"Well it's jus' dat' th' body they foun' wasn' even recognizable. An' you haven't 'ad any work in th' past four months, 'an well your only eight-teen, 'an normally I'd say 'O well at least 'dey've lived 'dat long'. But Lor your a Dayvin, you got a long life o'head o' you, I jus' don't wan'a see you waste your life." He was really concerned.  
  
The whole thing almost touched her heart, but the fact that she wasn't human but Dayvin, and not only that more or less an outcast was something she didn't really like to be reminded of, in fact her heritage had actually been the thing that had driven her to her current occupation. "Thanks for caring." She said anyway.  
  
"Well someone 'as ta, god kno's no one else will!"  
  
Lor let out a small laugh and closed her laptop and looked back at her bottle of vodka and without a second thought took another swig. 'Now, should I go there right now... Or should I just enjoy this peace." She thought to herself as she looked back out to the moon, it's silver rays only adding to her ghost like appearance. "Hmmm... If I wait the thing could strike again and kill someone else, but on the other hand another death might mean a bigger payoff... And anyone still around there after the first attack is probably just a waste of space and oxygen anyway...' She reasoned, probably be doing someone a favor. "Tomorrow then." The she moved the bottle to make a toast to the moon and took another swig.  
  
For the first time in four months she actually enjoyed herself, things were finally going back to normal, she didn't need to worry anymore. So she sat out on her balcony until a while after the sun had risen drinking her vodka and laughing at the people down below and how they looked like ants.  
  
It was two hours after the sun had come up when she decided to head in and make herself something to eat. Upon opening the fridge she gave a slight laugh, now it could have been the alcohol, or the fact that her fridge contain very little and nothing that she found rather appetizing at the moment. And so she began to weigh the pros and cons of going down to the grocery store to buy food.  
  
In the end re-heating the day old fried rice won out since she didn't have to go far to get it (in fact she only had to move her hand a bit to the left and forward), and to get it to a point of which it could be eaten was as simply as turning around and hitting a few buttons (oh the love of microwaves).   
  
After eating she had gone and done the same thing she had done for the past four months. Read the news paper (she had subscribed two months ago because she couldn't handle the boredom), after she was done that she did some paperwork and looked at whatever had come in the mail, this was then followed by random things that needed to be done, like washing the walls or cleaning her knives or vacuuming what little carpet she had, to say the least her apartment was very clean. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon when she finally decided to get some sleep and flopped down on her mattress in her bedroom.  
  
When she awoke the sun was just setting and it was time that she did her job. Walking over to her closet she pulled out several garments, everything in her closet was black or varying shade of dark gray or something with the odd bit of red. She washed her face and brushed her teeth but ignored the mop on top of her head - it would revert back to its state of disarray soon enough so why bother - before proceeding to dress.   
  
She wore a tight fitting black shirt that covered most of her torso as well as her neck but left her shoulders bare, the material that it was made from was the best part since it was really hard to pierce but very flexible and light weight. Contrary to her top half the dark gray pants she wore were rather baggy, she pulled on her belt that held her two blades each the length of her for-arm (guns worked well on people, but they just didn't seem to get the job done where her work was concerned). She then pulled on a long jacket that nearly reached the floor and was a shade some where between her shirt and her pants, then she pulled out two pieces of black cloth half the length of her for-arm that had buckles. She lay these out flat and attached to them to her wrists tucking the sleeves of her jacket into them, then she pulled on some boots that had once been black, and pulled two more pieces of black material with buckles and repeated the process only with her ankles and her pants.  
  
So with the sun setting Lor left her apparent for work for the first time in four months, rather happy to that those four months were behind her and if she didn't want to she didn't have to think about them any more.  
  
The streets were busy, 'no real shocker there' she thought as she walked by what had been ants that morning. The D-16 tunnel entrance was a bit far from where she lived now but the walk wasn't bad, however she wasn't sure if she was going to like the walk down memory lane if she had to go down D-16.  
  
She found The Breeze easily enough, the owner of the establishment Martin wasn't much help, other than 'it was big and dark and it took off that way' he had said pointing to D-16. She examined what was left of the things victim, not much left just as Jordan had said. Martin was offering 3000 for her to get rid of it, how he did not care, looking at the damage done the price could have been higher but given the circumstances she wasn't going to say anything.  
  
The sun had set, and the sky was clouded over obscuring the moon and the stars, not that it would matter in the undercity. She really didn't need to worry about that lack of light, by some fluke, be it her heritage or that fact that she grew up mostly in the dark, Lor could see a lot better in dim light then she could in broad daylight, which could be another reason for her somewhat nocturnal lifestyle.  
  
She took one last deep breath before she descended the steps of D-16 and began her search for whatever it was that had killed someone two nights ago.  
  
Going back to her childhood home wasn't as bad as she thought it might be since it was so different now, so empty. The place was run down and after it had been for the most part abandoned, it had fallen into disrepair and many passages that she had known well were now blocked off by rubble or in some cases junk.  
  
Finding the 'Mystery Monster' as she had come to call it wasn't going to be an easy process nor a quick one, but it's not like she really had anything else to do, right?  
  
Lor had been walking around for hours and still hadn't found a thing, well at least not a thing that could help her find said Mystery Monster. The only things she had found were rats, rubble, junk, and the odd memory that would sneak up on her.  
  
Upon finding a nice little nook that wasn't to badly infested with rats she decided to stop for a bit and sit down.  
  
She hadn't been sitting long before she noticed the place had an odd odor. At first Lor just tried to ignore it, but it started to get worse, and so cursing she stood up, not thinking anything of it since that kind of thing was common in these areas of the undercity, so mumbling about the world hating her and trying to tell her that she was sluffing off.  
  
However to her surprise the smell didn't get any better as she exited the little nook in fact it got much worse. When she came all the way out she found out why, standing in front of her was a large sludge demon of sorts, it was definitely big and dark, and was well equipped to do the damage she had seen, she quickly drew the conclusion that Martin had absolutely no sense of smell - lucky bastard.  
  
It lunged for her and she quickly dashed off to the side drawing her blades as she went coming up behind it nicking it twice in the back - it hardly seemed to notice. It had pretty quick reflexes for something of its size, for she hardly had time to move before the ground where she had just been standing was now more than dust and rubble.  
  
Not wishing to take any chance of it getting another chance at her she dashed back into the nook in which it could barely fit into. Her plan seemed - like most things - good at the time, in the tight confines of the nook it wouldn't be able to get the momentum to deliver one of its powerful stone crushing blows.   
  
Things when well at first - as most things do - she was easily avoiding it for the most part and she sliced it here and there, kind of like death by paper cut (laugh if you will but it works), while she had only received a slight blow to her right hip.  
  
The monster was starting to slow down from loss of blood, making Lor's job easier by the second, nothing could go wrong, right? 'Wrong, wrong, wrong' was all Lor could think of as she noticed a moment to late as a large unconscious sludge demon topple over.   
  
She had expected to die, to be crushed under the unknown weight of the demon or at the least to be trapped under the thing until she died from starvation. However, defying all logic she now found herself falling, 'perhaps' she mused to herself, 'the weight of that thing falling had punched a whole through the floor and she was now falling to some other part of the undercity'. Again this defied logic, for such a force should have killed her and near as she could tell she still lived, and not only that but was not in much pain, there was also the small fact that she was still falling.  
  
No sooner had that thought left her mind did she hit something. It was cold and hard and as she bounced off it she couldn't help but scream out "Blood hell", as she continued to tumble down what must have been the tallest mountain ever, wishing that she hadn't thought about how she had been 'still falling'.   
  
She finally came to halt on a ledge of sorts, still conscious somehow, although as Lor looked up to see where she was she really began to wish that she wasn't. Standing only a few meters away with it's back turned to her - thankfully - was a Balrog.  
  
Now Lor was not one to turn down a challenge nor was she one to run from a fight, in fact she usually took the jobs that other hunters turned down because of the risks. This wasn't because she was better then them however, some of them were quite good at what they did, the only separating factor between them was that self-preservation had never been overly high on her list of priorities.  
  
Even with that kind of mentality going one on one with a Balrog was still on her list of 'stupid things that should be avoided at all costs'. This was partially because when it came to major demons Lor relied more on magic, and the truth of the matter was that what she knew would be quite useless against that likes of what was before her (like throwing a ping pong ball at an elephant, it just didn't work to well).  
  
So she lay very still on the ledge with no place to go, hopping against hope that the demon would not see her and move off.  
  
She had been lying there for some time when she noticed that the Belrog really hadn't moved all that much, and in fact was already engaged with someone - sometimes her powers of observation surprised even her. This fact however changed the landscape completely in her mind, for although she wasn't crazy enough to pick a fight with a Balrog the only decent thing to do in a situation like that which was before her - in Lor's mind at least - was to help them. 


End file.
